“You-”He slammed his hands on his hips. “-are going to pay for this.”

“What are you gonna do, big guy? Spank me?”

Just like that, he got hard. Damn it! How did she keep doing this to him? And what kind of kinky talk was that for a respectable college professor?

An unwilling vision of that sweet little butt curving beneath his palm shot through him. He clenched his jaw, narrowed his eyes, and gave her a look so mean-assed he was ashamed of himself for using it on a poor, defenseless, pregnant female. “Maybe a bare-butt spanking is exactly what you need.”

“Really?”Instead of fainting from fear the way any sensible woman would have done, she got this calculating look on her face. “Might be fun. I’ll think about it.”

Just like that she turned on her heel and swept back to her room, leaving him standing at the bottom of the stairs in her dust. He was stunned. How did she manage to keep turning the tables on him like that? And what did she mean, she’d think about it?

He remembered that mangled Escort sitting in the drive right where his kickass Jeep should have been and charged up the stairs after her. He wasn’t half done with this fight!

Jane heard him coming and was ashamed of the thrill of anticipation the sound of those pounding feet gave her. Until these past few weeks, she hadn’t realized how heavily the mantle of maintaining her dignity had weighed on her shoulders. But Cal had no more use for dignity than a dog for panty hose.

He flew through her bedroom door and jabbed his finger in the general direction of her forehead. “Starting right now, the two of us are going to get a few things straight. I’m the head of this household, and I expect respect! I don’t want to hear another piece of sass out of you. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

His confrontation techniques undoubtedly worked very well with men, but she felt a flash of sympathy for those poor young girls he’d chosen as his past companions. He must have devastated those curvaceous little infants.

But for some reason the picture of him yelling at a defenseless twenty-year-old beauty queen wouldn’t take shape in her mind, and it didn’t take her long to understand why. He would never do it. Cal was incapable of unleashing the full force of his anger on someone he regarded as weaker than himself. The knowledge gave her a deep sense of pride.

“Your lip is bleeding again,” she said. “Go in the bathroom, and I’ll fix it.”

“I’m not going anywhere until we settle this.”

“Pretty please. I’ve always fantasized about tending a wounded warrior.”

That gave him pause. He got this dangerous, squinty-eyed look that made her knees a little wobbly. He was 190 pounds of dynamite getting ready to detonate, so why wasn’t she afraid?

He stuck a thumb in the pocket of his jeans. “I’ll let you patch me up under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“After you’re done, you sit quietly-and I mean with your mouth shut-while I take you apart.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”His roar nearly blew out her eardrums. “Is that it? Lady, you must not understand what I’ve got in mind because if you did, you wouldn’t be standing there telling me ‘okay’!”

She smiled just because she knew it would further irritate him. “I believe that open communication is important to a marriage.”

“We’re not talking about open communication. We’re talking about me taking you apart limb by limb.” He paused and thrust out his jaw. “Hand to bare butt.”

“Whatever.”She waved breezily as she set off toward the bathroom.

She almost felt sorry for him. He was an intensely physical man cursed with a strong moral conscience, which made it extremely difficult for him to have a truly satisfactory fight with a female. She finally understood why he loved football with its hard hits and thick rule book so much. To Cal, the combination of rough body contact and swift justice would be the best of all worlds.

This presented a definite problem in his relationships with women.

She crossed the cryptlike bathroom to the medicine cabinet and began a search of its contents. “I hope there’s something in here that really stings.”

When he made no comment, she turned, then gulped as she saw him pulling his shirt over his head. As he stretched, his scraped rib cage grew more prominent, and his navel formed a narrow oval. She saw the tufts of silky hair under his arms, the scar on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

He tossed the shirt aside and popped the button on his jeans. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m taking a shower, or don’t you remember you poured a pitcher of beer over my head, then locked me out of my own house in the middle of a savage thunderstorm? And that front gate you sabotaged had better be back in service first thing tomorrow morning or there’s gonna be some big-time hell to pay.” He pulled down his zipper.

She turned away, making the movement as casual as possible. Luckily the bathroom contained enough mirrors that by tilting her head she had a full view. Unfortunately, it was only of his back. Still that was pretty magnificent. Broad shoulders tapered to narrow hips and tight, flat buttocks. There was a red mark on one side of his spinal column from his fight with Kevin. She frowned at the collection of old scars and new scars and thought of all his aging warrior’s body had endured.

He swung open the door of the cylindrical shower stall, which looked as if it belonged on the starship Enterprise, and stepped in. Unfortunately, the frosting on the bottom half of the glass kept her from seeing more.

“You’re exaggerating about the savage thunderstorm,” she called out above the sound of the water. “It just started raining.”

“BeforeI made it over the top of the balcony.”

“Is that how you got in?” Impressed, she turned toward the shower.

“Only because you didn’t have enough confidence in me to secure those top doors.”

She smiled to herself at the injured note in his voice. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

“Obviously not.” He ducked his head under the spray. “Do you want to join me?”

She yearned to say yes, but his voice held a silky seductive note that reminded her of a snake slithering up the Tree of Knowledge, so she pretended not to hear. While he showered, she searched through the drawers of the vanity trying to locate some antibiotic ointment.

She found a tube of Crest Tartar Control squeezed up from the bottom and a column of neatly capped deodorant. His black comb was spanking clean and still had all its teeth. The drawer also held dental floss, a pair of shiny silver nail clippers, shaving cream and several razors, along with Extra Strength Tylenol, and a large tube of Ben Gay. And condoms. A whole box of them. The fact that he would be using these condoms with someone other than herself gave her a pang so sharp she ached.

Pushing the image aside, she knelt to look under the sink and found more Ben Gay, three cartons of Epsom salts, and a tube of antibiotic ointment. The water shut off and, moments later, the shower door clicked.

“Tucker’s using you,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”

“That’s not true.” She turned in time to watch him wrap a thick black towel around his waist. His chest was still wet, the dark hair matted.

“Sure it is. He’s using you to get back at me.”

The fact that he didn’t believe Kevin could find her attractive stung enough that it forced her to retaliate. “That may be true, but there’s also a subtle sexual chemistry between Kevin and me.”

He’d been in the process of pulling a hand towel from the rack to dry his hair, but his arm stalled in mid-reach. “What are you talking about? What sexual chemistry?”

“Sit down so I can fix your lip. It’s bleeding again.”

Droplets from his wet hair flew as he took an abrupt step forward. “I won’t sit down! I want to know what you mean.”

“An older woman, a very attractive younger man. It’s been happening since the beginning of time. But don’t worry. He won’t mess around with married women.”

His eyes had narrowed into mean-street slits at her description of Kevin. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”

“Only if the idea of Kevin and me together is discomfiting.”

He snatched the towel and vigorously rubbed his hair. “You know he’s only interested in you because you’re wearing my ring. If it weren’t for that, he wouldn’t pay any attention to you.”

He’d found her most vulnerable spot, and, just like that, the fun went out of the game. His meaningless threats of violence hadn’t bothered her, but the fact that he believed she was too geeky for another man to find attractive stung to the quick. “No, I don’t know that.” She headed toward her bedroom.

“Where are you going?” he called after her. “I thought you were going to patch me up?”

“The antibiotic is on the vanity. Do it yourself.”

He followed her into her bedroom, coming to a stop just inside the door. “Does Kevin- Does he mean something to you?” He flung down the hand towel. “How the hell could he mean anything to you? You don’t even know him!”

“Our discussion is over.”

“I thought you believed in open communication?”

She said nothing, but gazed out the window, wishing he’d go away.

He came up behind her, and she heard a curious gruffness in his voice. “I hurt your feelings, didn’t I?”

She slowly nodded.

“I didn’t mean to. I just- I don’t want you to get hurt, that’s all. You don’t have a lot of experience with jocks. They can be-I don’t know-hard on women, I guess.”

“I know.” She turned back to him in time to watch a crooked rivulet of water slide toward a flat brown nipple. “I think I’ve had enough high drama for today. You’d better go.”

He came closer instead, and when he spoke, his voice held a surprising note of tenderness. “We didn’t even get to the bare-butt spanking.”

“Maybe some other time.”

“How’bout we just do the bare-butt part?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to bare anything to each other for a while.”

“Now why do you say that?”

“Because it makes everything too complicated.”

“Last night wasn’t complicated. At least not ’til you got all snooty.”

“Me!”Her head shot up. “I’ve never been snooty in my life!”

“Oh, yeah?” Her renewed feistiness must have been what he was waiting for because the glimmer of battle once again flared in his eyes. “Well, I happen to have been at that drive-in with you, and, believe me, you were snooty.”

“When?”

“You know very well.”

“I don’t.”

“Thatquite pleasant crap.”

“I don’t know what- Oh, that.” She regarded him more closely. “Did what I said bother you?”

“Hell, no, it didn’t bother me. You think I don’t know how good I am? And if you don’t realize it, well, I guess that’s your problem and not mine.”

He looked sulky, and she realized she had hurt his feelings last night. The knowledge touched her. Despite his seemingly boundless self-confidence, he had insecurities like everyone else. “It was more than pleasant,” she admitted.

“Damn right.”

“I’d say it was- It was-” She regarded him out of the corner of her eye. “What word am I looking for?”

“Why don’t you start out with pretty damn terrific?”

Her spirits made a quantum leap upward. “Terrific? Yes, that’s a good start. It was definitely terrific. It was also…” She waited.

“Exciting, and sexy as hell.”

“That, too, but…”

“Frustrating.”

“Frustrating?”

“Yeah.”A combative thrust to that square jaw. “I want to see you naked.”

“You do? Why?”

“Because I do.”

“Is this a guy thing?”

His truculence faded, and one corner of his mouth-the uninjured corner-curled. “You could say that.”

“Believe me when I tell you that you’re not missing much.”

“I’m probably a better judge of that than you are.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true. You know those endlessly long legs you see on models? Those legs that go all the way up to their armpits?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I don’t have them.”

“Is that a fact.”

“My legs aren’t short, but they’re not exceptionally long, either. Just average. And as for breasts- Do you consider yourself a breast man?”

“They’ve been known to catch my attention.”

“Mine won’t. Now my hips are a different matter. They’re huge.”

“Your hips are not huge.”

“I look like a pear.”

“You do not look like a pear.”

“Thank you for the vote of confidence, but since you haven’t seen me naked, you’re not exactly a competent judge.”

“We can take care of that right now.”

He was at his most enticing: gray eyes glinting, that unexpected dimple on display just beneath his cheekbone, funny, warm, sexy. And she was at her most vulnerable. In a flash of insight that nearly knocked her from her feet, she realized that she was in love with him. Deeply and forever in love. She loved his masculinity, his intelligence, his complexity. She loved his sense of humor and his loyalty to his family, as well as that old-fashioned moral code that dictated he watch out for a child. Even one he didn’t want.